Hi,
Today Im going to explain a Hong Kong-
Chinese action film called “Project Gutenberg”.
Spoilers ahead!!
Lee Man and his girlfriend Yuen live in Vancouver as painters.
While Yuen creates original art, Lee is more
interested in replicating the paintings made by famous painters.
He is very talented in his field of work and
can replicate almost any kind of painting
to every minute detail.
However, his work is not very popular among
the dealers and the gallery show organizers
since they cannot display a counterfeit painting
no matter how good it is.
One evening, Lee returns home to hear Yuen’s
manager telling her that she should drop being
Lee’s co-artist if she wants to succeed.
Yuen, in turn, asks the manager to drop her
because she would never stop being Lee’s
partner.
After a lot of struggle, the duo manages to
land a spot in an art show.
Their paintings are displayed for the guests
to see.
Many of them love Yuen’s work but are critical
of Lee’s paintings.
One guest named “The artist” goes as far
as to call his painting fake.
Yuen furiously throws her drink in his face
and asks him to go away.
Lee follows the man behind to apologize and
finds out all this was a setup made by the
artist so they could meet in private.
He says he recognizes Lee’s talent for counterfeit
art and praises his precision.
They go to a bar and talk over a drink.
The artist claims that he also loves precise
replicas and has a job for Lee if he wants
to change his life.
After the encounter, Lee goes back to the
art gallery and burns the painting that was
insulted earlier.
Project Gutenberg Film Watch Online
Satisfied with the decision, he calls the
artist the next day and agrees to work for
him.
When asked what paintings he wants to be replicated,
the artist shows him a hundred-dollar bill.
It turns out he is planning to make bundles
and bundles of fake money that is impossible
to be recognized.
Since they cannot just print the money, the
artist is desperate to have someone like Lee
in the team.
Initially, Lee refuses to do anything illegal
but upon realizing that he will be swimming
in money, he takes the offer.
He returns home that day and sees Yuen moving
away from their home.
She has decided to leave him after the stunt
he put in the art gallery that cost her a
lot of money.
In the following scene, Lee joins the artist
and his team on a private plane that is flying
to Thailand.
Lee still plans to return to Canada and win
Yuen over after making some money.
The team consists of a printing plate specialist
Mr. Yam, a color theory expert, and two people
in charge of security and sales.
The new 1996 US 100-dollar bill features the
duplessis version of Franklin’s portrait that
is enlarged by 50% which resulted in more
details and lines.
Even if they use the commercial printer with
the highest resolution, the result will be
of Moiré pattern and not precise at all.
Moreover, there is a micro print on Franklin’s
collar on the bill that says “The United
States Of America”.
A commercial printer would never be able to
print this with precision.
This is where Lee comes to play because he
can paint the bill better than the printers.
Secondly, the bills are made of scratch-free
paper that turns the black ink of the “counterfeit
detection pen” into yellow.
This helps bank workers separate fake from
real.
The artist is yet to find a way to get the
scratch papers but until then, he wants Lee
to work hard on the painting process.
For the next few weeks, Lee paints the hundred-dollar
bill with absolute precision, not missing
a single streak or a line.
To embed the watermark and the security thread
in the counterfits is yet another difficulty.
For this, they are going to use a Chinese
painting method where the real painting is
sandwiched between two papers that are pressed
to make the middle layer stand out.
Next, comes the printing process that is under
Mr. Yam.
He uses his expertise to make a printing plate
that paints with 10000th of a millimeter precision.
On a test round, they see that there is no
moire effect which means they are successful.
After that, the artist discovers a way to
acquire scratch paper that is the main raw
material for production.
They travel to eastern Europe to a phonebook
manufacturing company.
It turns out they use scratch paper that is
triple the width of a 100-dollar bill to manufacture
phone books.
The width is perfect for the sandwiching process,
so they buy a huge batch of it disguised as
a Chinese comic book company.
After importing the paper to their hideout,
it doesn’t take them long before making
the counterfeits that look identical to real
bills.
They sell it through an antique shop to wholesalers
and are very careful about the people they
do business with.
After six months of working with the artist,
Lee returns to Vancouver to return a key to
Yuen.
He refuses to meet her and decides to leave
the key on her desk.
The artist thinks he is a coward for giving
up so easily which causes an argument between
the two.
To prove his bravery, the artist brings out
a gun and goes to a police car to conduct
a robbery out of nowhere.
Lee has to reluctantly help him in it but
he cannot shoot anyone out of fear.
By the end of the impromptu robbery, all the
policemen are dead and Lee is left shocked.
He finally realizes his boss is not a sane
person.
Moreover, he only signed up to paint, not
to kill people.
Then, we are introduced to a counterfeit bill
expert in the police named Wing.
He is called to Hong Kong from Canada because
the police have gotten a hint of a sudden
rise in fake dollar bills all over the world.
Wing meets the head of Hong Kong police, Inspector
Ho.
They go on an undercover mission and pose
as customers who are willing to buy fake money.
After several meetings with a lot of brokers,
they are allowed to meet the artist at a boat
party.
However, their hopes to catch the culprit
are crushed when they find out the painter
sent his brokers in his place.
They test Wing in several ways and figure
out he is not a threat.
One afternoon, Lee approaches the artist and
claims that he doesn’t want to be on the
team anymore.
Still, he promises to find a new way for them
to keep their business going before his departure.
The artist allows him to do whatever he wants
without a fuss.
In the following montage, we see the team
traveling the world and selling their money
at an international level.
The profits are insane and so is the demand
for their goods.
Then, they get the highest bid from the Thai
crime boss “the General”.
He calls The artist and his team to his hideout
for a business meeting.
But it turns out the General killed the artist’s
father long ago, hence, the artist is here,
not for business but to kill the General.
He asks Lee to trigger the explosives in his
jacket but a cowardly Lee refuses.
Seconds later, a car explodes and a shootout
ensues.
Everyone from the General’s team is killed
except for their counterfeit money expert
named Sarah.
She is about to die after catching on fire
but is saved by Lee.
After the group departs, she is taken care
of and invited to the team because of her
expertise.
Lee takes care of her and the two develop
a friendship.
Meanwhile, the artist gives her a fake ID
under the name Yuen after Lee’s ex-girlfriend.
The team takes a one-year break from business
after the incident.
During this time, Lee and the artist go back
to Vancouver to meet Yuen and win her over.
By now, she has turned into a famous artist,
selling hundreds of her paintings.
However, things go downhill when they find
out she is engaged to her manager.
The artist wants Lee to fight for his love
but he has already given up.
In the following scene, they are on a yacht
on their way to a business meeting with the
undercover policeman Wing.
The artist does his own research about the
customer and finds out about his true identity.
He also discovers the police were able to
find them because the printing plane expert
Mr. Yam broke the rules and bought a watch
with counterfeit money.
As they had decided, his family will now have
to be killed for his mistake.
Mr. Yam begs for his family’s life but the
artist shoots him dead.
Lee tries to retaliate but is knocked out.
After that, the team meets Wing who is unaware
that they know his true identity.
Once they are in a closed room, the artist
asks Lee to kill Wing but he refuses.
In the end, he has to do the job himself.
To make Lee get over his fear of killing,
the artist has kidnapped Yuen and her fiance.
He hands Lee a gun and asks him to kill them
since it will be easier for him to kill people
he hates.
However, Lee refuses yet again.
In a fit of rage, the artist kills Yuen’s
fiance himself while Lee saves Yuen.
Sarah knows that Lee will also be killed after
this.
She remembers that he saved her life long
ago and attacks the rest of the team.
In the ensuing shootout, all the members die
and Lee finally kills the artist.
Sarah makes him let go of Yuen and brings
him to a resort that the artist had bought
for them.
They find out he is still alive because the
police never recovered his body.
One day, Lee discovers that Yuen is about
to organize a memorial for her late fiance.
He suspects the artist will be there to kill
her to get to him.
Despite Sarah begging him to not go, he does
it anyway.
However, on the way, he accidentally uses
the counterfeit money and is apprehended by
the police.
He is then taken to Hong Kong under Inspector
Ho’s custody and interrogated. Lee is terrified
of getting killed by the artist if he reveals
his identity, hence he keeps quiet about everything.
A few days later, Yuen comes to meet him and
convinces him to help the police.
They settle on an agreement that Lee will
be released into witness protection for revealing
the artist’s identity and criminal history.
After that, Lee starts telling the police
all about his past, starting from his relationship
with Yuen, how he met the artist, the money-making
process, the time he witnessed the first murder,
and so on.
After he reveals everything, he also helps
the police make sketches of the only two remaining
people from their team, Sarah, and the artist.
By the end of the day, Lee and Yuen are left
in a hotel with security outside.
The police immediately start a search for
the artist now that they have a picture of
him.
While they are at it, inspector Ho notices
him disguised as a police officer in the police
headquarters itself.
She and her team arrest him and hold him down
only to find out the man has been a policeman
for several years and couldn’t be the artist
at all.
This is especially strange because he was
the one playing the role of the artist from
the very beginning.
It is then revealed that the policeman was
the guy who helped Ho to bring Lee from Thailand
to Hong Kong.
Lee had seen his face on the route and remembered
it.
A flashback shows us that Lee and the artist
are the same people.
Lee created the artist in his mind to escape
the reality that he is a horrible person.
Every time he was fearful of the crimes the
artist was committing, Lee was the one committing
them.
He was also the one who killed Mr. Yam and
his family for buying a clock.
In the last shootout that killed most of his
team, he was the one who killed Yuen’s fiance
and the shootout was caused due to a conflict
among them.
Another shocker comes when we realize the
girl who came to bail Lee is not Yuen but
Sarah.
She was so obsessed with Lee that she got
plastic surgery since her face was burnt.
After the surgery, she looked identical to
Yuen.
She came to save her lover and the two have
already fled from the hotel room after killing
the guards.
In the following scene, we see the couple
together in bed.
Sarah is sad that she is always going to be
a counterfeit for Yuen and a second option
for Lee.
When asked if he sees her for herself, Lee
doesn’t try to hide that he is still in
love with Yuen.
The next day, they get on a boat and run away
from Hong Kong.
But on the way, Sarah reveals she has been
driving in circles for hours and they are
still in Hong Kong’s territory.
She wants to kill him and herself and end
the life of misery.
They are soon surrounded by the police but
before they catch them, the boat explodes,
killing both of them in the process.
In the last scene, inspector Ho goes to the
real Yuen to inform her that her fiance’s
killer has died.
On looking at a picture of Lee, she recognizes
him as just a neighbor she had long ago.
It turns out Lee even fantasized his entire
relationship with Yuen when they were never
together.
Thank You.
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